How does 'K' Sonar work?

The 'K' Sonar enables blind persons to perceive their environment through ultrasound and be more mobile in their need to travel. The 'K' Sonar has been designed to be attached to a long cane. It also can be used without the cane as an independent travel aid for those who have learned to use it well in suitable, familiar, recognizable situations.

• The 'K' Sonar works like an ordinary flashlight except that it sends out a beam of sound rather than light.
• Silent ultrasonic waves bounce off objects sending back information about objects and their location.
• Sonar information is collected from the path ahead by the 'K' Sonar providing a mental map of objects in front and to the sides of the user as the cane is scanned. The tip of the cane acts as a safety backstop by coming into contact with an object that was not avoided.
• Scanned objects normally produce multiple echoes, translated by the 'K' Sonar receiver into unique invariant 'tone-complex' sounds, which users listen to and learn to recognize. The human brain is very good at learning and remembering these sound-signature sequences in a similar way that it learns a musical tune.
• The sound signatures vary according to how far away the 'K' Sonar is from the object, thus indicating distance. The user listens to these sounds through miniature earphones and can detect the differences between sound sequences thus identifying the different objects.

Why choose the 'K' Sonar?

Because it:

• is 10 times more powerful than the simple ETA single object detectors currently available on the market. This is simply because it has a very wide bandwidth of one octave.
• reduces stress of an unexpected object contact by helping the user avoid objects in advance rather than detecting them through sudden contact
• allows greater freedom of movement.
• enables user to be independently mobile no matter where they are.
• can lead to improved work opportunities through observable increased mobility and self-confidence.

Two are better than one

The combination of the cane and the 'K' Sonar together becomes a powerful means for independent travel by blind and visually impaired people. This combination removes most of the limitations of either aid by itself. The 'K' Sonar provides earlier warnings of surrounding obstacles than the cane can provide. This helps to avoid them more smoothly and provides good identification of objects that makes navigation much easier than with only a cane.

Seeing with sound

The 'K' Sonar uses KASPA Technology to mimic the bat's sonar capability of gathering rich spatial information about the surrounding environment. In a similar way to a person recognizing the texture of different surfaces through their fingertips, sonar echoes, as heard in miniature headphones, carry object texture information to the brain. KASPA Technology has been studied in parallel with animal sonar studies for over 40 years.

Unique technology

KASPA Technology is unique and 10 times more powerful, due to its bandwidth, than the simple pulse-echo devices also available to the blind. KASPA Technology uses the brain's sophisticated neural processing capability to discriminate between different objects. KASPA Technology is recognised by the Acoustical Society of America through its publication.

Other systems

Some pulse-echo sensors also claim to model the bat sonar. However, they can only do this in a crude way by using a simple tone pulse, as the ultrasonic emission, in order to receive a detectable echo from the nearest object. The bat and the 'K' Sonar both emit similar frequency chirps, and multiple objects can be detected and recognized.

How does the user learn?

Learning is relatively easy since the user's brain seems to accept and process sonic information remarkably well. The brain learns the sound signature sequences created when walking, as if it were learning and remembering a musical tune. Users can recognise environmental changes along a known route by referring to their memory of that route's "sound patterns".

This ability is not in-built. Learning how to use the 'K' Sonar can vary between the users. However, the basic understanding of object presence, distance and direction can be picked up very quickly. This process has been classed as extremely intuitive.

Have sonar, will travel

Blind cane users are able to adapt rapidly to using the 'K' Sonar. Fred Gissoni wrote about his experience - "My cane is 20 feet long" - in the New Outlook journal. Fred Gissoni, who is a customer relation’s adviser in American Printing House for the Blind of the USA, has tested prototypes of 'K' Sonar over a period of several years. He says the device is so sensitive that he was able to detect the motion of a bird dancing on a wire above him as he stood in his back yard. Many of those who have tried 'K' Sonar have praised the device for its potential to make everyday tasks easier.